illegal CD production facilities that were supplying the Warsaw Stadium. The Ministry of Culture has instituted new reporting and inspection requirements concerning optical disc production and the equipment used to produce optical disc media. Despite these notable improvements in Poland, a significant volume of pirated optical media products (CDs, DVDs, and CD-ROMS), including illegal sound recordings, audiovisual products, videogames, and business software applications, continue to enter Poland. Large amounts of pirated music imports enter Poland from Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, and Russia, while pirate movie DVDs enter from Russia, and pirate software enters from Russia, Ukraine, Malaysia, and China. Significant amounts of pirate cartridge-based video games arrive in Poland from the Greater China region. In addition, Internet piracy, including piracy at Internet cafes, presents a growing problem in Poland. The United States commends Poland for its heightened efforts over the past year to improve its IPR regime, and we encourage Poland to continue this progress by committing its resources and attention to IPR enforcement and issues related to pharmaceuticals as outlined above.
ROMANIA
Romania will remain on the Watch List in 2005, and we will continue monitoring several IPR enforcement-related issues. Although Romania improved its IPR regime in 2004 by amending its Copyright Law to include civil ex parte search authority, IPR enforcement did not improve in Romania in 2004. The U.S. copyright industry continued to experience high piracy rates and significant losses in Romania in 2004 due to weak enforcement and judicial deficiencies. The U.S. copyright industry remains frustrated with an apparent lack of appreciation for the importance of IPR protection and the significant social and economic effects that piracy has on industry. While domestic IPR laws provide for adequate substantive protection, enforcement efforts remain weak and ineffective. It appears that law enforcement agencies and the judiciary place a low priority on IPR enforcement. For example, the Romanian judiciary has dismissed a large number of cases on the grounds that there is a "lack of social harm." The United States urges Romania to improve and adequately fund its enforcement activities in order to combat piracy. In 2004, Romania implemented data protection legislation. Romania recently stated its intention to strengthen its IPR laws to reflect international standards. The United States encourages this approach and looks forward to seeing further improvements in Romania's IPR regime.
SAUDI ARABIA
The United States commends Saudi Arabia for improving its legal protections in laws to protect intellectual property as part of its ongoing efforts to join the WTO, where Saudi Arabia will be required to comply fully with the TRIPS Agreement upon the date of accession to the WTO. Saudi Arabia will remain on the Watch List in 2005, and the United States will conduct an out-of-cycle review to monitor Saudi Arabia's progress on IPR issues during the coming year. Saudi Arabia still needs to resolve a number of IPR issues. For example, Saudi Arabia's newly amended copyright law offers greater protection for IPR through strengthened penalties, but still lacks some basic minimum standards that are required by the WIPO Internet Treaties and TRIPS, including providing for destruction of seized goods, materials, and machinery, and failure to provide for recovery of litigation costs. Implementing regulations also need to be finalized for the copyright law. The United States urges Saudi Arabia to continue improving its enforcement efforts, and commends Saudi Arabia for its recent accomplishment of conducting a large-scale
